For The Night Is Dark

by Mynhardt, Joe

  After reclining my chair, I close my eyes and listen. The pattering of the rain reminds me of my childhood. No specific memory comes to mind.

  I take a deep breath, and for a while, my mind remains silent. Then, I think of Helen standing in the living room. She points. She chops. She chokes the air with her bare hands. I wasn’t paying much attention to her speech at the time, but part of my brain must have been listening.

  Bits and pieces of the conversation burst inside me. I hear “really disappointed” and “can’t understand you” and “distance between us.” The words pry me open. I hug my chest and tears spill from my eyes.

  Helen keeps talking in my head, and when I open my eyes, I notice a shadow in front of me that has never existed within this tree house before. The mass of darkness imitates my form. I lean forward on the recliner, and Shade leans forward on his shadow-recliner.

  I wipe away my tears. I try to force away my feelings, but I’m not fast enough. Shade comes at me and grabs handful after handful of my essence before I can seal myself off. I accomplish this sealing by bringing to mind the creaky chair and the squeaky bed and the tiny shower.

  “I didn’t think you were allowed up here,” I say, like an idiot. There’s no point talking to this creature.

  The shadow responds with a mocking jig.

  Before now, I never spotted Shade outside of my house. I assumed he never entered this tree house because he couldn’t. I suppose I was wrong.

  But if he could always breach my sanctuary, why didn’t he do so before now?

  Perhaps he’s growing stronger.

  “Get out,” I say, an even bigger idiot than before.

  Shade flips me off and grabs a luminous green thread coming out of my chest. He pulls and pulls.

  That night, Helen kisses me for longer than ten seconds.

  “We’re going to be all right,” she says. “Aren’t we, Brian?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  In bed, I roll over and face the wall. I try to focus on Helen’s warm arm wrapped around me, but I end up in a different bedroom with Elena. In the fantasy, she’s wearing red lipstick and black stockings. She’s dancing for me in the moonlight.

  Sometimes I try to escape this fantasy by opening my eyes, and when I do, I find Shade an inch from my face. Close up, his eyes are like swirling black clouds. He breathes his cold, sickly sweet breath on my face. Smelling him is like sniffing an open box of raisins.

  “Helen,” I say.

  “Yeah?” she says, and she sounds too far away to be in the same room.

  “I’ll try harder.”

  “I know you will.”

  In a dream that night, I’m standing in a bedroom that smells like moldy leftovers. I’d like to leave, but Helen asked me to straighten up in here and I promised that I would. There isn’t much to clean though, other than the floor. The bed, the nightstands, the dressers, they’ve all disintegrated into piles of silver dust. Once I sweep everything up, my work will be done.

  I find a broom in a dark corner of the room. The enormous sort of broom a janitor might use. As I sweep, the silver dust glimmers and expands. I end up with a hill on one side of the room. I start sweating when I realize that the hill is blocking the only door.

  Of course, Shade planned all of this. He destroyed the furniture and he imbued the dust with his dark energy. I should have suspected all this from the beginning.

  Is the hill moving toward me or am I only imagining things?

  I turn away from the mound of silver and face a window. In a moment, the ratty gold curtains wither away, revealing a dried-up world of white sand and blackened, dead trees. Upon seeing this scene, I immediately feel thirsty.

  I should break through the silver hill behind me, go downstairs, pour myself a glass of orange juice. Instead, I remain perfectly still. In time, a procession of men, women and children appears, moving from the left of my vision to the right. Lying on their stomachs, they drag themselves across the sand with long, emaciated arms. To be honest, their shriveled bodies disturb me a little.

  Who are these people? Where are they going? What happened to them to make them so hideous? I could ask them for the truth, but I won’t. I’m sure their answers would bore me.

  Out of sympathy, I reach out to touch the glass in front of me. I want to get a sense of how hot it is outside so that I can estimate how much these people are suffering.

  When my hand passes through the window, I tremble. There is no glass. No separation. The men and woman and children glare at me with hollow eyes. They drag themselves toward me. They open their mouths, wider than any human should. I clasp my hands over my ears, in anticipation of their screams or wails. Their mouths open even wider.

  In the morning, I search the fridge and find a carton of orange juice hidden behind a stack of foam take-out boxes. I’m dying of thirst, so I drink directly from the carton. But all that’s left of the orange juice is a trickle of oozing pulp. My neck tightens and my back aches. To be honest, I’m usually the one who puts almost-empty containers back into the fridge, but something tells me that Helen is the culprit this time. Inside my head, I can see her so clearly. I see her gulping down the entire carton, leaving me behind nothing but a frustrating taste. Then she smiles the way she always smiles behind my back, and she hides the carton in the darkest region of the fridge where I’ll have to search for it.

  These thoughts are so ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh. Still, my neck remains tight and my back won’t stop aching. I use my foot to open the lid to the trash can. I shove the empty carton inside.

  During breakfast, Helen freezes with her fork halfway to her mouth. A chunk of scrambled eggs quivers and jumps onto the table, like a depressed man committing suicide. But Helen doesn’t seem to notice.

  “So you’re not looking at me anymore?” she says.

  “What?” I say, glancing at her face.

  “You haven’t looked at me all morning.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  She brings the empty fork to her mouth and eats a mouthful of nothing. “You didn’t know you weren’t looking at me?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  Helen lowers the fork to her plate. “If you’re upset about something, just tell me.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “I can tell you’re upset.” She reaches out to me, as if to take my hand, but I don’t move a muscle.

  “I’m not upset. I’ll look at you.” I stare at her nose. “See?”

  She sighs and returns to her eggs.

  In truth, I’m still furious about the orange juice, even though I probably put the almost-empty carton in there myself. I want to tell all this to Helen, but if I released my anger, tendrils of orange thread would burst from my chest. And then Shade would steal away even more of me.

  I could try to explain to Helen about Shade, but I’m afraid that to know Shade would make her vulnerable to his attacks. I don’t want Helen to live in fear of losing herself. It’s better that she remains ignorant.

  “I’m going to be home late tonight,” I say. “I have a meeting.”

  “What sort of meeting?” she says.

  “The boring, mandatory kind.”

  Helen finishes her eggs and kisses me goodbye. After the front door closes, Shade seeps out of Helen’s suicidal egg chunk. He flips me off.

  I return the favor.

  That evening, I find myself in a motel room much like the one I found myself in last week. There’s the same creaky chair and squeaky bed and tiny shower. Every time I come here, it’s like a recurring dream. I don’t know how to stop it.

  The real Elena knows how to please me, but still, she’s not quite the Elena from my fantasies. The real Elena isn’t wearing red lipstick or black stockings. She doesn’t dance for me in the moonlight.

  After we exhaust ourselves on the chair and bed and in the shower, we lie on the bed, facing the ceiling. Elena holds my hand. This is the point in the evening where she tells me a little about her w
ork. I never pay much attention to what she says, but sometimes bits and pieces of the conversation burst inside me at a later time. I think she works in a restaurant. I think she has a daughter, or a son. I can’t remember which.

  “Brian,” she says. “There’s something I gotta tell you.”

  I’ve never heard her sound so serious before. I want to pull my hand away, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Not after everything she’s done for me tonight.

  “I know what this is,” she says. “I mean, I know we’re not dating. I know you’re married. And I don’t want to freak you out or anything. But . . . I like you a lot, Brian. I love you.”

  I pull my hand away from hers. “You can’t love me. You don’t even know me.”

  “But I do. I feel like we’ve known each other forever. Like in past lives even.”

  At this point, I see Shade on the popcorn ceiling. He reaches towards me, and his tiny hand descends from the ceiling like a spider.

  “It’s OK if you don’t love me back,” she says. “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

  Glowing purple threads burst from my chest.

  “I have to go,” I say.

  “Stop freaking out,” she says. “I told you, I know we’re not anything. I just wanted you to know I care about you.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “Brian.” Her voice breaks when she says my name.

  I leave the motel room, and I don’t look back.

  By the time I reach my house, my whole body’s trembling. I can barely walk. I don’t know exactly how many threads I have left inside me, but I’m definitely running low. If Shade yanks out any more, I’m not sure if I’ll survive the night.

  Making my way through the living room, I find Helen asleep on the couch, arguing with the voices coming from the television.

  “You’re wrong,” she says. “They aren’t fluffy at all!”

  In her sleep is the only time she raises her voice anymore.

  I cover her with a blanket, and then make my way to the kitchen. I eat a bologna sandwich and drink a glass of orange juice. Helen must have gone to the grocery store after work.

  After I finish my meal, I feel a little stronger. Shade invaded my tree house, my motel. He’s getting stronger by the hour, and I’m getting weaker. I need to finish him off while I can still move.

  I’ve attempted to kill Shade before, many times, but there has to be something I haven’t tried yet. I walk through the house. I let my mind wander. Eventually, I find myself staring at a bottle of bleach on the washing machine.

  Why didn’t I think of this before?

  Helen is a deep sleeper, but I work as quietly as possible. From the garage and the kitchen and the bathroom, I gather together all the cleaning products and dangerous chemicals that I can find. I dump these containers into the tub. After a short time, I begin feeling faint. I don’t know if it’s the loss of threads or the chemical fumes. I open up the bathroom window, in case the fumes are getting to me.

  “Where are you?” I say, searching the bathroom walls. He’s not in the cat calendar or the toilet paper. Sometimes he likes to reveal himself in the mirror, imitating my form. But he’s not there either.

  Good.

  I set down a piece of computer paper beside the sink and I write my name using black permanent marker. For some reason, Shade can’t resist manifesting himself from my signature.

  Next, I sit on the toilet and I think of Helen. I think of the way she runs her fingertips across the lines of my palms when we’re watching television on the couch. I think of her strange chortle of a laugh that’s unlike any other laugh I’ve heard before. I think of the nights when she weeps beside me in bed and I pretend that I’m asleep.

  Yellow tendrils worm their way out of my skin. I keep my eye on the sheet of computer paper. Sure enough, Shade pulls himself out of the first letter of my name. I don’t know how long he’ll stay there, so before another moment passes, I toss the paper into the tub.

  Immediately, there’s a hissing sound and a low-level hum. I look into the chemical bath. Shade kicks and punches and undulates his body, as he sinks deeper and deeper into the brown liquid. I lean forward. Close up, his eyes are like swirling balls of static.

  Without thinking, I reach out to touch him. When my finger passes through his tiny face, I tremble. I always thought there was some substance to his body. I guess I was wrong.

  At this point, I could probably ask Shade to answer the questions that haunt my mind. I could ask him what he is. I could ask him why me. But I keep my mouth shut. I don’t think I want to know the answers.

  Eventually, Shade stops hissing and humming and fighting. His tiny head melts away, and what remains of his body spreads like black ink in the brown concoction of chemicals.

  I expect to be struck by a wave of relief. But instead, my entire body breaks out in a sweat. My innards contort. I feel dizzy and nauseous and alone. I sit on the cold tile for a while. Then, after the dizziness passes, I search the room for Shade. I don’t see him in the cat calendar or the toilet paper or the mirror. Perhaps he’s truly dead.

  I should be happy.

  I’m free.

  After draining the tub, I walk into the living room and stand beside the couch. I look at Helen’s peaceful face.

  I should wake her up and talk to her. After all, there’s nothing stopping me now from telling her everything, about Elena and all the others.

  But if I tell her the truth, if I show her my glowing threads and tendrils, I know what she’ll do. Inside my head, I can see her reaction so clearly. I see her mouth opening with shock, wider than any human should. Then she screams or wails. And she opens her mouth even wider.

  No, I can’t do that to Helen.

  So I keep my mouth shut and go to bed.

  HOW THE DARK BLEEDS

  —JASPER BARK—

  The scalpels were so sharp Stephanie could almost taste them.

  It had taken her a while to steal a full set. The long ones were the hardest to get hold of. The surgeons notice when those scalpels go missing.

  She arranged them in order of size for the tenth time that night, laying them out on the bare floor of the basement room. It used to be an auxiliary boiler room but they gutted it when they modernised the hospital’s plumbing. Now it was empty apart from a few supply boxes. The bare walls hadn’t been painted for over two decades and the only light bulb had been smashed.

  Stephanie had brought a flashlight. She wasn’t ready to let the darkness into the room. The darkness didn’t threaten her, but what waited there did. Presences that thrived in the darkest hours and places.

  The urge to use the scalpels was growing. Stephanie couldn’t hold out much longer. She felt dizzy with longing as she picked up the shortest scalpel and thought about how it would feel slicing through her jugular.

  Stephanie’s heart beat faster and to hold back the yearning just a little longer she pressed her index finger onto the blade. It sliced through the layers of skin and a thick red trickle of blood ran out. She could feel the presences in the dark draw closer as she let the blood spatter on the concrete floor forming a tiny pool.

  Stephanie shone the flashlight on the little red pool. Maybe it was because she hadn’t eaten in a day or more, or perhaps she really was losing it, but Stephanie was sure she could see pictures reflected on the surface of the blood. Images that swam in and out of focus like sediment rising from the bottom of a disturbed pond.

  The images looked familiar. She stared harder, willing them into focus as she realised what they were. They were scenes from her life. Not memories, because she was watching herself from the outside. It was a disconcerting feeling, like watching yourself on video, or hearing how your recorded voice sounds for the first time. Her life was being played back to her stripped of all the self serving misconceptions that so often colour our memories.

  There was a word for what she was experiencing but Stephanie couldn’t quite remember it. She’d had a conver
sation about it just recently she was sure. Maybe the images in the blood would remind her. She stared hard as a scene began to form, a scene from her recent past.

  Stephanie saw herself on the hospital wards, in the ICU . . .

  ***

  Stephanie’s uniform hung awkwardly about her. She could never find one that fitted. They were always too small or too large for her.

  She tried to adjust it surreptitiously as the Duty Nurse briefed her. Stephanie nodded without paying too much attention. She was supposed to sit with someone on a suicide watch.

  The patient had suffered third degree burns from a house fire. Her father had died in the fire and the patient had tried to take her own life, so she had to be kept under constant supervision.

  Stephanie sat down beside the patient and smiled politely. The patient gave Stephanie a cursory glance and then went back to scowling at her book. She was thin, with close cropped brown hair, olive skin and elfin features. She seemed to be repressing an intense, twitchy energy, as though there was something inside her trying to scratch its way out.

  Her right arm and shoulder were covered with heavy dressing. The dog eared paperback she was staring at was The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas. There was a pile of similar textbooks and faded hardbacks by her bedside.

  “Good book?” said Stephanie. Without looking up the patient said: “Her work’s largely dismissed by the most academics and she makes too many unwarranted assertions, but her views on the origins of religion are worth consideration.”

  “But you’re enjoying it, right?”

  “This isn’t the sort of book you read for enjoyment.”

  “No I don’t suppose it is. Are you a student then?”

  The patient put down her book and stared straight ahead, not bothering to hide her irritation. “You know, none of the other nurses asked so many questions.”